Research

Working Papers

From Two Heads to One: The Short-Run Effects of the Recentralization of Political Power in Rural China with Thomas Post, Zihan Ye, and Xiaopeng Zou

Abstract: The consequences of granting democratic rights to citizens in otherwise authoritarian regimes has been extensively studied. Much less is know about the implications of retracting these rights when a government wants to recentralize power. Autonomous governance in rural China, introduced in the 1980s, has declined over the past two decades. In 2018, the Communist Party promoted a “one head” policy, replacing the dual governance of village chief and party secretary with a single office-holder. We examine the short-term impacts of this policy on voting behavior and political perceptions using a nationally representative survey and election timing as an instrument. Our findings reveal a significant decrease in election turnout in “one head” villages due to reduced competition. However, villagers' perceptions improve: they report less corruption and greater confidence in local government. This suggests that recentralization was achieved at the cost of electoral involvement but without negative backlash on institutional quality perceptions.

Job Security and Liquid Wealth with Anna Figueiredo and Agnieszka Markiewicz

Abstract: We study changes in job security after displacement and exploit eligibility rules for lumpsum payments in the Netherlands to investigate the role of liquid wealth. Within five years of job loss, the likelihood of being in permanent employment remains 12% lower for displaced workers. Those eligible to a lump-sum transfer experience a significantly smaller negative shock to job security. This effect is driven by workers with low liquid wealth, pointing to liquidity constraints as an important mechanism linking unemployment and job security. Finally, we estimate that losses in job security can explain a fifth of the wage cost associated with job displacement 

Tax-Induced Emigration: Who Flees High Taxes? Evidence from the Netherlands with José Victor C. Giarola, Frank Cörvers, and Hans Schmeets

Abstract: We study the impact of a policy change in the Netherlands that reduced preferential tax treatment duration for high-skilled migrants arriving from specific countries in certain years. Utilizing comprehensive tax and population data, we document substantial tax-induced emigration responses, primarily driven by the top 1% of earners. Highly mobile individuals within the top 5% also emigrate sooner, particularly to competing countries offering tax-breaks to attract skilled workers. Crucially, we uncover no change in mobility behavior among lower-earning workers. The increased tax receipts from lower-income individuals who remain offset the loss from fleeing high earners, making the policy fiscally cost-neutral.  

The Fast and The Studious? Ramadan Observance and Student Performance with Kyra Hanemaajier and Marco Musumeci

Abstract: What are the consequences of religious obligations conflicting with civic duties? We investigate this question by evaluating changes in the performance of practicing Muslim students when end-of-secondary-school exams and Ramadan overlapped in the Netherlands. Using administrative data on exam takers and a machine learning model to individually predict fasting probability, we estimate that the grades and pass rate of compliers dropped significantly. This negative impact was especially strong for low achievers and those from religiously segregated schools. Investigating mechanisms, we find suggestive evidence that not being able to sleep in the morning before an afternoon exam was particularly detrimental to performance.  

Religious Barriers to Birth control Access. with Esmee Zwiers  (revise and resubmit at the Review of Economics and Statistics)

Abstract: We investigate how the benefits from oral contraceptive liberalization may not have been universally distributed across women because of demand- and supply-side religious frictions. First, we show how minors from more religiously conservative areas in the Netherlands were less likely to benefit from gaining legal pill access in 1970. We then document how the large effects we find on delayed fertility/marriage decisions and on human capital accumulation were eliminated by supply-side moral barriers to access. Women in liberal areas with more gatekeepers—general practitioners and pharmacists—who were opposed the Pill on religious grounds did not benefit from its legalization. 

Less School (Costs), More (Female) Education? Lessons from Egypt Reducing Years of Compulsory Schooling with Ahmed Elsayed (reject & resubmit for the Journal of Human Resources)

Abstract: Exploiting a unique policy reform in Egypt that reduced the number of years of compulsory schooling, we show that it unexpectedly increased education attainment. This impact is almost entirely driven by girls from more disadvantaged households staying in school longer. Treated women later experienced important positive improvements in labor market opportunity and marriage quality, as measured by bride price received and household bargaining power. We reject changes in school quality as a driving mechanism and attribute the increased investment in girl’s human capitcal to adjustments by credit-constrained families when school costs dropped combined with strongly non-linear returns to female education.

Published Papers

Immigration and Crime: An International Perspective with Paolo Pinotti. Journal of Economic Perspective, 2024, 38, 181-200.. 

Abstract: The association between immigration and crime has long been a subject of debate, and only recently have we encountered systematic empirical evidence on this issue. Data shows that immigrants, often younger, male, and less educated compared to natives, are disproportionately represented among offenders in numerous host countries. However, existing research, inclusive of our analysis of new international data, consistently indicates that immigration does not significantly impact local crime rates in these countries. Furthermore, recent studies underscore that obtaining legal status diminishes immigrants’ involvement in criminal activities. Finally, we discuss into potential explanations for the apparent incongruity between immigrants’ over-representation among offenders and the null effect of immigration on crime rates.

Risky Moms, Risky Kids? Fertility and Crime After the Fall of the Wall with Arnaud Chevalier. Journal of Public Economics, 2024, 230, 105084.

Abstract: Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the birth rate halved in East Germany. Despite their small sizes, the cohorts conceived during this period of socio-economic turmoil were, as they grew up in reunified Germany, markedly more likely to be arrested than cohorts conceived a few years earlier. This is consistent with negative parental selection during the period of turmoil. We highlight risk attitude as an important selection mechanism, beyond education and other observable characteristics, which explains: (i) why some women did not alter their fertility decisions during these uncertain economic times, (ii) that this risk preference was passed on to their children and (iii) that risk preference is correlated with criminal participation.  Maternal selection along risk preference might thus be an important mechanism explaining the greater criminal activity of the children conceived after the fall of the Wall.

Sick Leave Cuts and (Unhealthy) Returns to Work with Judit Vall Castello. Journal of Labor Economics, 2023, 41, 859-1182

Abstract: We investigate the impact on work absence of a massive reduction in paid sick leave benefits. We exploit a policy change that only affected public sector workers in Spain and compare changes in the number and length of spells they take relative to unaffected private sector workers. Our results highlight a large drop in frequency mostly offset by increases in duration. Overall, the policy did reduce the number of days lost to sick leave. For some however, return to work was premature as we document very large increases in both the proportion of relapses and, especially in the number of working accidents. The displacement towards this latter (unaffected) benefit cancels out almost two-fifths of the estimated gains in terms of days lost to absences from cutting sick leave generosity.  

The Economic Benefits of Education for the Reduction of Crime with Joel Carr & Suncica Vujic. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics         and Finances, 2023

Abstract: Education and crime have historically been recurrently linked by social observers who noted that individuals with lower levels of education were more likely to be involved in criminal activity. However, the relationship between education and crime is complex, and it is important to clearly establish causality to determine if investing in education can be an effective crime-reducing policy. The persistent observed educational attainment inequalities between offenders and non-offenders are not sufficient to make any causal claims about the underlying relationship between education and crime. Many other factors can influence an individual's decision to stay in school or commit a crime, and these factors need to be accounted for when estimating the relationship between education and crime. Economists theoretically predicted in the late 1960s that education, via its positive effect on future earnings, would reduce the probability of criminal participation. Empirical studies have since used various econometric methods to establish that, on average, education has a strong causal crime-reducing effect. One strand of this literature has established in various contexts that individuals from cohorts forced by law to stay longer in school were much less likely to end up in court or prison. There is however still much to be discovered about the effect of education on crime, such as the underlying mechanisms related to income or non-cognitive effects, and heterogeneities by context, education level and quality, and individual characteristics. Overall, there is a consensus among economists today that investing in education is an efficient public spending strategy to effectively reduce crime.

'High Achievers?' Cannabis Access and Academic Performance with Ulf Zölitz. Review of Economic Studies, 2017, 84, 1210-1237

Abstract: This paper investigates how legal cannabis access affects student performance. Identification comes from an exceptional policy introduced in the city of Maastricht in the Netherlands that discriminated access via licensed cannabis shops based on an individual’s nationality. We apply a difference-in-difference approach using administrative panel data on course grades of local students enrolled at Maastricht University before and during the partial cannabis prohibition. We find that the academic performance of students who are no longer legally permitted to buy cannabis substantially increases. Grade improvements are driven by younger students and the effects are stronger for women and low performers. In line with how cannabis consumption affects cognitive functioning, we find that performance gains are larger for courses that require more numerical/mathematical skills. Our investigation of underlying channels using course evaluations suggests that performance gains are driven by an improved understanding of the material rather than changes in students’ study effort.

Economic Uncertainty, Parental Selection, and Children’s Educational Outcome with Arnaud Chevalier. Journal of Political Economy, 2017, 125, 393-430

Abstract: After the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany experienced an unprecedented temporary drop in fertility driven by economic uncertainty. We show that the children born during this transition period performed worse on a range of educational outcomes from an early age onwards. The mothers of these children exhibit personal characteristics and family structures consistent with negative parental selection. Investigating the underlying mechanisms reveals that parental educational input and emotional attachment were also lower for these children. Finally, our ability to compare siblings means that we can reject that our results stem from a time of birth effect. [latest DP version]

     Police and Thieves in the Stadium: Measuring the (Multiple) Effects of Football Matches on Crime in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society:            Series A, 2016, 179, 273-292

Abstract: Large sporting events affect criminal behaviour via three channels: fan concentration, self-incapacitation, and police displacement. I exploit information on football matches for London teams linked to detailed recorded crime data at the area level to empirically estimate these effects. I find that only property crime increases in the communities hosting matches but not violent offences. There is negative away game attendance effect on crime which is due to voluntary incapacitation of potential offenders attending a match. Police displacement during home games increases property crime by 7 percentage points for every extra 10,000 supporters in areas left under-protected. [latest DP version]

    Measuring the (Income) Effect of Disability Insurance Generosity on Labour Market Participation with Judit Vall Castello. Journal of Public       Economics, 2012, 96 , 198-210

Abstract: We analyze the employment effect of a law that provides for a 36 percent increase in the generosity of disability insurance (DI) for claimants who are, as a result of their lack of skills and of the labour market conditions they face, deemed unlikely to find a job. The selection process for treatment is therefore conditional on having a low probability of employment, making evaluation of its effect intrinsically difficult. We exploit the fact that the benefit increase is only available to individuals aged 55 or older, estimating its impact using a regression discontinuity approach. Our first results indicate a large drop in employment for disabled individuals who receive the increase in the benefit. Testing for the linearity of covariates around the eligibility age threshold reveals that the age at which individuals start claiming DI is not continuous: the benefit increase appears to accelerate the entry rate of individuals aged 55 or over. We obtain new estimates excluding this group of claimants, and find that the policy decreases the employment probability by 8 percent. We conclude that the observed DI generosity elasticity of 0.22 on labour market participation is mostly due to income effects since benefit receipt is not work contingent in the system studied. [latest DP version]

    Youth Crime and Education Expansion with Stephen Machin and Suncica Vujic. German Economic Review, 2012, 13 , 366-384

Abstract: We present new evidence on the causal impact of education on crime, by considering a large expansion of the UK post-compulsory education system that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The education expansion raised education levels across the whole education distribution and, in particular for our analysis, at the bottom end enabling us to develop an instrumental variable strategy to study the crime-education relationship. At the same time as the education expansion, youth crime fell, revealing a significant cross-cohort relationship between crime and education. The causal crime reducing effect of education is estimated to be negative and significant, and considerably bigger in (absolute) magnitude than ordinary least squares estimates. The education boost also significantly impacted other productivity related economic variables (qualification attainment and wages), demonstrating that the incapacitation effect of additional time spent in school is not the sole driver of the results. [latest DP version]

    Crime and Police Resources: The Street Crime Initiative with Stephen Machin. Journal of the European Economic Association, 2011, 9 , 678-701

Abstract: In this paper we look at the connection between police resources and crime by focussing on a largescale policy intervention—the Street Crime Initiative—that was introduced in England and Wales in 2002. This allocated additional resources to some police force areas to specifically target street crime, whereas other forces did not receive any additional funding. Estimates derived from several empirical strategies show that robberies fell significantly in SCI police forces relative to non-SCI forces after the initiative was introduced. Moreover, the policy seems to have been a cost effective one, even after extensively testing for possible displacement or diffusion effects onto other crimes and into adjacent areas. Overall, we reach the conclusion that increased police resources can be used to generate falls in crime, at least in the context of the SCI program we study. [latest DP version]

    The Crime Reducing Effect of Education with Stephen Machin and Suncica Vujic. The Economic Journal, 2011, 121, 463-484

Abstract: In this article, we study the crime reducing potential of education, presenting causal statistical estimates based upon a law that changed the compulsory school leaving age in England and Wales. We frame the analysis in a regression-discontinuity setting and uncover significant decreases in property crime from reductions in the proportion of people with no educational qualifications and increases in the age of leaving school that resulted from the change in the law. The findings show that improving education can yield significant social benefits and can be a key policy tool in the drive to reduce crime. [latest DP version]

    Crime and Benefit Sanctions with Stephen Machin. Portuguese Economic Journal, 2006, 5, 149-165 (pre-phd paper)

Abstract: In this paper we look at the relationship between crime and economic incentives in a different way to other work in the economics of crime field. We look at empirical models where a toughening of the unemployment benefit regime can be used to study how people on the margins of crime may react to changes in economic incentives. We present three sets of complementary evidence, all of which show that toughening the benefit regime can have an unintended consequence, namely increases in crime. The first approach presents quasi-experimental evidence, looking at crime rates in areas of England and Wales before and after the introduction of a new, tougher unemployment benefit programme—the Jobseekers Allowance (JSA)—in October 1996. The second approach considers qualitative evidence on individuals affected by the change in the benefit regime. The third relates changes in area crime rates to post-JSA sanctions. Each of these approaches uncovers evidence of higher crime occurring as a consequence of the benefit reform. [latest DP version]

Book Chapters

Education and Crime: What We Know and Where Do We Go? with Joel Carr and Sunčica Vujić in A Modern Guide to Economics of Crime, edited by Paolo Buonanno, Juan Vargas, and Paolo Vanin, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022

Lessons from the Economics of Crime with Philip J. Cook, Stephen Machin, and Giovanni Mastrobuoni in Lessons from the Economics of Crime,  edited by Philip J. Cook, Stephen Machin, Olivier Marie and Giovanni Mastrobuoni, MIT Press, 2013. 

The Relationship between School Performance, Delinquency, and Early School Leaving with Tanja Traag & Rolf van der Velden in Criminal Behaviour from School to the Workplace, edited by Frank Weerman and Catrien C.J.H. Bijleveld, NSCR/Routledge, 2013, 

Work in Progress

"Minority Salience and Criminal Justice Decisions" with Kyra Hanemaaijer amd Nadine Ketel

"Public and Political Responses to Refugees" with Paul Bose and Renske Stans

"One or Two Heads? The Short-run Impacts of the Re-Centralization of Power in Rural China" with Thomas Post, Xiaopeng Zou, Zihan Ye 

"Immigration, Crime, and Prison: A Reconciliation?" with Paolo Pinotti

"Poor Rich Women: Losing Childcare Subsidies and Female Labour Market Outcomes" with Gabriele Mari and Renske Stans

"Early Release from Prison on Electronic Monitoring and Recidivism: A Tale of Two Discontinuities"